REVIEWS NEWS INTERVIEWS OTHER

(1 - 43) of 43 OFCS Rating: 65% Fresh Page   1   "this dystopian paranoid thriller tracks addiction in all its highs and lows, and offers a dignified elegy for its misguided casualties."   Channel 4 Film   Anton Bitel C "Dick fans will find more to play with here than the average viewer. But as a rotund demonstration of visual imagination and social insight, the absence of focus just murders the effort."   FilmJerk.com   Brian Orndorf 9/10 "...like Cubism in human form, woozy and kaleidoscopic."   PopMatters   Chris Barsanti B- "Richard Linklater sticks to the narrative flow of Philip K. Dick's novel without embellishing it with current sociopolitical realities that the book foreshadowed."   ColeSmithey.com   Cole Smithey "Simultaneously strange and familiar, not himself, Bob lives inside an ooky, unsolvable world that mirrors our own ongoing fears, of surveillance, loss, and forgetting. "   PopMatters   Cynthia Fuchs 3.5/4 "With A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater proves that anything worth doing is worth doing right, no matter how painstaking a process doing it right might prove to be."   rec.arts.movies.reviews   David N. Butterworth A- "Linklater somehow makes coherent Dick's incoherent visions."   Ozus' World Movie Reviews   Dennis Schwartz 2/4 "So preachy in its anti-drug stance that it might as well have had the financial support of D.A.R.E. during its production."   TheMovieBoy.com   Dustin Putman C "Without the rotoscoping, the movie would be completely undistinguished, competent but only mildly entertaining."   EricDSnider.com   Eric D. Snider 3.5/4 "Very much like the drug which inhabits it; splitting its own persona from paranoid druggie comedy to the sharp spiral of the addictive effects and the hopeless, misguided attempts to end it all."   eFilmCritic.com   Erik Childress B "If the details of the plot wind up fuzzy and nearly irrelevant, Dick and Linklater's paranoiac vision remains in the memory."   Film Blather   Eugene Novikov C- "A bummer clearly."   One Guy's Opinion   Frank Swietek 3/5 "A well-realized dystopian sci-fi drama about addiction and paranoia."   Spirituality and Practice   Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat 2.5/4 "A Scanner Darkly is always interesting, but it's not always involving, and it's even less often entertaining."   ReelViews   James Berardinelli 6/10 "An ambitious drug movie that's much less mind-blowing than it could've been."   ReelTalk Movie Reviews   Jeffrey Chen 3/4 "Even though scene for scene it sticks very close to Philip K. Dick's counterculture classic, A Scanner Darkly feels much more like the earnest theorizing of Richard Linklater in Waking Life mode."   Slant Magazine   Jeremiah Kipp "A Scanner Darkly is a fascinating esthetic and intellectual experience but, like addiction itself, it's an emotional dead end."   Pajiba   Jeremy C. Fox 4/5 "That Linklater can keep a light tone running through the film in spite of weighty subject matter ensures that A Scanner Darkly is accessible enough for wide audiences without dumbing down for others."   FilmFocus   Joe Utichi 6/10 "When the film is on track, it works; when it devolves into meaningless chatter, it simply drifts."   DVDTown.com   John J. Puccio 7/10 "If you're looking for some sort of alternative to a three-hour sequel to a bad film based on an amusement park ride, Darkly might be the picture for you."   Planet Sick-Boy   Jon Popick 4/5 "It's an identity crisis wrapped in a mystery and smothered in freakout sauce, and it's relentlessly interesting. The grooviest scenes are the ones where the characters are clearly impaired and riffing on their own inner alpha waves."   Cinerina   Karina Montgomery "Perhaps we are sick only so someone can sell us the cure."   Pretentious Musings   Kevin Koehler 2.5/4 "While visually arresting and not devoid of enticing ideas, it's confusing, repetitive and pretty much a bummer."   Montreal Film Journal   Kevin N. Laforest 3/4 "Richard Linklater wraps novelist Philip K. Dick's paranoid, prescient nightmare of addiction and identity lost down the rabbit hole in the same rotoscoped animation that helped produce the blissed-out groove of his Waking Life."   TV Guide's Movie Guide   Maitland McDonagh 4/10 "The approach is creative, but it still does not overcome the problems of bringing such a contemplative novel to the screen."   rec.arts.movies.reviews   Mark R. Leeper 3/4 "A wonderfully trippy movie, more about the drugs and paranoia than the plot"   Movie Habit   Marty Mapes "[O]h, yes, the evil cleverness, the deep and seriously profound wit of casting... Keanu Reeves... with his melancholy insolence that everyone mistakes for lethargy, with his irony so deadpan it goes all the way back around to something like calculated sel"   Flick Filosopher   MaryAnn Johanson 3/4 "Linklater creates an eerie, mysterious, menacing hyperreality that engulfs the mind and senses."   Mr. Brown's Movies   Michael Dequina B "Would be significantly more wearisome...were it not for Linklater's ability to tap into his source material's atmosphere of unsettling paranoia."   Lessons of Darkness   Nick Schager 4/5 "Acabando por revelar-se bem mais complexa do que poderíamos supor a princípio, a trama deste filme nos apresenta a um mundo sombrio e ameaçador no qual a máxima "os fins justificam os meios" acaba atingindo dimensões assustadoras."   Cinema em Cena   Pablo Villaca 3/5 "Linklater's decision to assemble a supporting cast widely known for their own drug connections should reek of stunt casting, but doesn't."   Film Threat   Pete Vonder Haar 4.5/5 "A churning passion inside this eerie dramatic thriller really gets under our skin."   Shadows on the Wall   Rich Cline 3/5 "Linklater may have admired the novel -- I do, too -- but that doesn't necessarily make him the ideal director for this material."   eFilmCritic.com   Rob Gonsalves A- "It places Dick's nameless terrors as close as the beady-eyed gaze of our next-door neighbor -- a gaze that says, "I see you, buddy, and I know what you did.""   Flipside Movie Emporium   Rob Vaux C+ "I think this is a film that would have been more effective as live action, rather than animation."   Laramie Movie Scope   Robert Roten C+ "The stars [Reeves, Downey Jr., Harrelson, Ryder and Cochrane] are at one with Linklater and his vision of a future, screwed up world (like this one isn't screwed up!)."   Reeling Reviews   Robin Clifford 3.5/5 "Destined to become one of those movies that college kids love to rent and smoke bongs with."   DVD Clinic   Scott Weinberg B "The atmosphere of schizophrenia, paranoia and disconnection from reality is the most faithful screen adaptation of Dick's sensibility to date."   Seattle Post-Intelligencer   Sean Axmaker 6/10 "While it's a mundane cautionary cult tale about the perils of drug abuse, a curious visual appeal is what distinguishes this film."   Modamag.com   Susan Granger 6/10 "While it's a mundane cautionary cult tale about the perils of drug abuse, a curious visual appeal is what distinguishes this film."   Modamag.com   Susan Granger 4/4 "Like the best science-fiction, A Scanner Darkly is about you plus me and the time ticking away on the remainder."   Film Freak Central   Walter Chaw "Click here to see review"   Wolf Entertainment Guide   William Wolf 2.5/4 Read review   Big Picture Big Sound   Joe Lozito  (1 - 43) of 43 OFCS Rating: 65% Fresh Page   1